BCB aims to run Dhaka franchise

Bangladesh Cricket Board aims to run the Dhaka franchise of the upcoming Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League after they disqualified Rupa Fabrics Ltd and Marn Steel Ltd (Consortium) the night before the players draft, BPL Governing Council's Member Secretary Ismail Haider Mallick said.

After the BPL players' draft at a city hotel on Monday, Mallick told the reporters that BCB is now looking for a team sponsor for Dhaka.

"When we float the tender for the franchise rights, 10-12 parties expressed their interests, and after completing the whole process, we have selected eight and short-listed six interested candidates. Five of them deposited the money by the deadline. So, the one who missed did not get the ownership right, there was another one interested, but we thought the board better form the team first. After forming the team, we will seek sponsors or might hand over the ownership," he told the media on Monday.

Changing rules at the last moment is nothing new for BCB, and since the BPL restarted after the first two editions were scrapped due to corruption, the Dhaka franchise has always been controlled by influential BCB directors.

Dhaka Dynamites, a franchise that took part in the BPL from 2015 to 2019, was owned by Beximco Group, where BCB President Nazmul Hassan is the Managing Director. CEO of the Dynamites team was Obeid Nizam, now a BCB director. Mallick is also currently working at Beximco.

Even in the Bangabandhu T20 Cup, Beximco held the Dhaka franchise and in the upcoming BBPL T20, if the BCB operates the capital's franchise, it might just be the same men running the team, but depriving BCB of a large amount of franchise fee.

Though, Mallick does not see this as a conflict of interest.

"I am not finding it conflicting. Doesn't the host team take part in the World Cup? This is also kind of the same thing. We will operate the team. We might take sponsors. The BCB president has instructed us last night. We have several sponsors or owners. We have appointed the coach already, signed the outside-draft player too. It will run separately. Whenever a team plays in the field it does not make any difference, there is no way of interference.

"We will run the tournament, and the team will be independently run by the team management. Habibul Bashar is there, Shahriar Nafees is there, Tamim-Riyad-Mashrafe is there, the team will run separately. Ownership stays with the board. Maybe we will take five more sponsors," he said.

But things were not that plain and simple.

Tamim Iqbal was the first player picked by Dhaka, and then he joined the others of the team management at the Table during the draft. After the draft, Tamim even said, "We were told we can pick anyone. In other teams, there were some budget issues that I have experienced, but this time in the draft we were given the ultimate freedom."